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              US Lawmaker: Only Wider US Role Will Defeat IS Group

   by Victor Beattie

   U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham said the only way to end the gruesome
   beheadings by the Islamic State group is by degrading and destroying
   the insurgency, which has captured large swathes of Iraqi and Syrian
   territory. The latest beheading of a Japanese journalist by the IS
   group has renewed a national debate on Japan's ability to defend
   itself.

   Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told a U.S.
   television audience Sunday on "Face the Nation" that President Obama
   has the right goal, but the wrong strategy to defeat the Islamic State
   group, ISIL.

   "An aerial campaign will not destroy ISIL. You're going to need boots
   on the ground, not only in Iraq, but Syria, and there's got to be some
   regional force formed, where an American component, somewhere around
   10,000 American soldiers to align with the Arab armies in the region
   and go into Syria and take back territory from ISIL," said Graham.

   Graham said Syria and Iraq are the best platforms from which to launch
   new terrorist attacks on Western targets that he has seen since the
   September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

   The beheading by the Islamic State group of 47-year old Japanese
   journalist Kenji Goto, announced in a video released Saturday, brought
   international condemnation.  The U.N. Security Council Sunday called
   the execution "heinous and cowardly," saying those responsible "shall
   be held accountable." President Barack Obama denounced what he called a
   "barbaric act" and vowed to "continue taking decisive action to degrade
   and ultimately destroy" the Islamic State group.

   Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Sunday said he was "infuriated" by
   Goto's beheading and that of fellow Japanese Haruna Yukawa a week
   earlier. On Monday, Abe vowed not to give in to terrorists and to
   increase Japan's humanitarian aid to the Middle East.

   The prime minister urged Japanese lawmakers to ensure the safety of
   Japanese citizens wherever they are. He also said the government should
   not limit where the country's defense forces can be dispatched to
   defend allies in collective self-defense.

   Tokyo-based analyst Michael Cucek of the MIT Center for International
   Studies said Abe's government wants to debate easing restrictions on
   military rescue missions in the event Japanese are again put at risk.

   "They have an idea that they need forces that can hold a position,
   whether it's an airport or a seaport allowing Japanese self-defense
   forces to extract Japanese civilians from danger zones," said Cucek.

   However, he said polling suggests the Japanese public does not want any
   dramatic revisions to its pacifist postwar constitution. He added that
   the Japanese public views Goto as a heroic journalist.

   "He reported on the children of war zones, on refugees.  He really went
   into some very dangerous places and came out every time, but a man of
   tremendous bravery who was trying to report on what was going on in the
   world from ground level.  And, for many Japanese, they did not know him
   before, but everyone knows him now, and everyone is deeply depressed by
   his death," said Cucek.

   Also appearing Sunday on "Face the Nation" was Jordan's Foreign
   Minister, Nasser Judeh, who said his government does not know the fate
   of a Jordanian fighter pilot threatened with death by his Islamic State
   captors. He said Amman has renewed its pledge to release a female Iraqi
   insurgent on death row in Jordan.

   "We have said publicly that, if there is proof of life, and if our
   pilot is released, we are willing to release this woman. But, like I
   said, we have seen no proof of life, which we have been asking for,"
   said Judeh.

   The pilot was captured in December, after his fighter plane was downed
   over an Islamic State-controlled area of Syria.
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   efeat-is-group/2624260.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/us-lawmaker-only-wider-us-role-will-defeat-is-group/2624260.html